Giant pandas attract visitors

DM Monitoring

NANJING: Nine giant pandas that have moved to their new homes in east China’s Jiangsu Province attracted numerous visitors amid the country’s eight-day holiday.
China celebrates its National Day on Oct. 1, and the week-long holiday this year has been extended to Oct. 8 as it overlapped with the traditional Mid-Autumn Festival.
The giant panda hall of the Ziqing Lake tourist resort, in the provincial capital Nanjing, has received more than 3,000 visits every day for the holiday, said Yang Xinyi, deputy general manager of the resort.
The hall, located in Tangshan, a renowned tourist destination in Nanjing, was closed to visitors earlier this year because of the COVID-19 epidemic, and to receive tourists, the park has taken measures including body temperature measuring and regular disinfection in the giant panda hall.
Ten black-and-white bears, including six returning from abroad, took flights to Nanjing from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, in late August last year, a move to create a new breeding base for the rare species.
The oldest one, 22-year-old Xi Xi, returned to Chengdu on Aug. 31 this year.